Nice to Meet You
by hobbitberry
Summary: Professor Stein's house was silent except for the sound of his fingers dancing across the keys to his computer. He had reached a point where he didn't even know what he was doing, or why he was doing it, but his fingers just kept moving.


**Background info!**

* * *

Professor Stein's house was silent except for the sound of his fingers dancing across the keys to his computer. He had reached a point where he didn't even know what he was doing, or why he was doing it, but his fingers just kept moving.

He paused to light a cigarette and look over his work. The test, that's what he had been doing.

He turned and looked at his doorway. Was that a car door outside? He listened, ultimately deciding that he had been hearing things as he turned back to his work. His fingers began to fly across the keyboard again.

No, he had been right. It was a car door. And now there was someone knocking on his door. He kicked away from the desk, turning the screw in his head as he went.

"You're at the wrong house." He said as he opened the door. He hadn't been expecting anyone.

On his front porch stood a surprised girl in a blue sundress and red sunglasses. Her long auburn hair was pulled back in a pony tail, she was rolling a strand of hair between her fingers, but at his words her hands flew to her floral bag and rummaged through it for a piece of paper.

"Are you sure?" She pulled out a crumpled slip of paper. "It says that this is the address of Professor Franken Stein."

"Well that is me. I don't believe that we've met." He turned the screw and she watched him carefully.

"No we've never met." She blew a pink bubble with her gum and waited until it popped to continue. "But you knew my mother."

"Did I?" Stein rested his chin on the back of his chair. During the course of her talking he had spun around.

"Well not her name." The girl shrugged. "But she knew you, and that's why I'm here. You met her seventeen years ago."

"What's your name?"

She took off her sunglasses and revealed bright green eyes. "Ana Stein."

"Stein?" Stein dropped the butt on the ground and crushed it with his foot before removing his glasses and looking at the girl on his step.

"My mother gave me my father's last name." Ana said, wringing her hands nervously in front of herself.

"Come in." Stein pushed himself back through the door and stood up, gesturing for her to enter. She sat on the couch and he sat across from her.

"So you are-"

"Your daughter." She finished and waited for his response.

"I see." He lit another cigarette and took a large drag. He barely remembered the night, he was young and had on vacation with Spirit. He had met a woman in a bar, and one thing led to another. The next morning when he woke up she had been gone, and he had never thought about her again. He never even knew her name. But she had the same eyes and the same hair as the young girl sitting before him. "And why are you here?"

"I was hoping I could stay here for a while?" She played with the hem of her dress, looking at her hands.

Stein looked at her surprised and was suddenly overrun with emotion, something that didn't happen to him often. He tapped his fingers against his leg and nodded. "I'd be happy to let you stay. There's a spare room upstairs, it's not much."

Ana jumped up and wrapped her arms around his neck. "Thank you, Daddy."

"You're welcome, Ana." He tentatively hugged her back before she happily danced over to the door and opened it, gesturing for someone to come in.

The cab driver dragged two huge suitcases up to the door and placed them inside. "What about the animals, Miss?" The driver took off his hat and looked Ana up and down.

"They're fine outside for now." She said, apparently oblivious to his wandering eyes.

Stein felt an immediate dislike for the man, he shouldn't be looking at her like that. She was too young, he was unshaven and smelled of old alcohol. She could do so much better than him. He paused. Was this how Spirit felt about Maka when he saw her and Soul standing too closely together? He turned his attention back to the man in front of him, finding him standing even closer to Ana now, who was chatting with him happily.

"Thank you for your help." Stein shoved a few dollars into the man's hand and then gestured towards the door, eager to get him away from the girl in the blue sundress.

"Thank's again for letting me stay."

"Can I ask why?"

Ana hesitated. "Mama drank. She would go out every night and drink, and she would come home with a different man all the time. Sometimes I'd be scared to even leave my room. About a month ago, she didn't come home. I looked for her everywhere and she never turned up. I stayed there for a while, but without Mama's checks from the government I couldn't afford the house, so I remembered she told me where you lived and I came to find you."

"I'm sorry, that should of never happened to you." Stein's words were bitter with regret. He could of helped her.

"You didn't know I was alive, it's not your fault." She hugged him again. "I'm glad that I'm finally getting to meet you."

"Me too."

"I'll make dinner." She told him. "I'm good at cooking."

"Let me show you where your room is and you can get settled." Stein picked up her two suitcases, which he found were heavier than they looked and carried them upstairs.

Ana called something out the door and then followed him.

"This is your room and that's a large dog." He turned and found a large black great dane standing behind her and watching him carefully.

"This is Doku. And this-" She lifted a small white fluff ball from the ground and it mewed with protest. "is Kaido. I hope you don't mind, but I couldn't leave them."

"No, they're fine." He set her things down as she put the cat on the bed, Doku following her into the room as she began to unpack.

"I'll come down and start dinner soon." She opened one of the bags and Stein saw that it was filled with nothing but clothes and shoes. She followed his gaze. "The other one looks the same." Ana laughed. "I managed to fit all of my clothes into two bags. Don't ask me how."

Stein felt as though she were dismissing him and he quietly left her to her unpacking, wondering how his life had been swept up in such a whirlwind. He didn't know how to be a father, he barely knew how to interact normally with other people. And those animals, what if she left them alone with him one night and he felt the need to dissect them?

The thought that he might dissect her never even crossed his mind. She had hugged him, even called him Daddy. He couldn't imagine harming her, and it felt like someone punched him in the stomach when he realized that he had missed her entire childhood. He thought back to when Maka was born, and how ecstatic Spirit had been.

Back then, he had never imagined himself as a father, he still didn't imagine himself as a father though he was starting to understand Spirit's overwhelming need to protect Maka all the time.

He wondered what else he was going to feel now that he had taken on the responsibility of a teenage girl.

Stein wandered into the kitchen and pulled the carton of juice from the fridge, holding it up to his lips and taking a drink. Should he not do that anymore since he didn't live alone? He wondered as he placed it back in the fridge just in time for Ana to come into the kitchen, Doku trailing behind her.

"Go lay down." She told him and he squeezed between two chairs and settled underneath the table. "Dad, what do you want for dinner?" She began to rummage through the cabinets as if she had lived there her entire life.

At least she's comfortable with me. Stein shrugged. "Anything you make will be better than what I've been cooking."

"Now don't say that until after you try it." She joked, pulling a few ingredients from the shelves.

He found that talking to her was easy, if there had been any doubts about her being his daughter, they disappeared as she displayed the same dry sense of humor he possessed. The two of them laughed while she cooked, and she asked him question after question about the academy.

"No, I'm not a Meister. I like to work with kids." She told him, sprinkling some spices into the soup she was making. She chopped up some veggies and poured them in. "Mama told me that you're a Meister though. That's interesting."

"I suppose so."

Eating dinner with Ana was pleasant, Stein usually ate alone at his computer. He suddenly recalled something and sighed, moving to light a cigarette and stopping. He wasn't sure how Ana would react to smoke around her dinner.

"What's wrong?" She looked up from where she was slipping a piece of meat to Doku.

"I have to finish a test for my students, it's tomorrow."

"Well you go ahead, there will be plenty of time for us to talk. I'm going out after dinner anyways. I'd like to see the nightlife of this place."

"Oh. Are you sure that's safe?"

"Yeah, I'll be fine." She stood and cleaned her dishes off. "I'll be back late. I don't know if you'll be awake still, so I'll be quiet."

"Oh-okay." Were fathers supposed to allow their daughters out by themselves late at night? Something told him no. "Ana?"

"Yes?"

"The soup was delicious." Was he allowed to tell her what to do all the sudden? Something else told him no as well.

She smiled brightly before disappearing back up the stairs, Doku rushing up after her.

He stood and stretched, lighting the cigarette that he had been craving for half an hour. He dumped his dishes in the sink and slunk back to his desk, cracking his knuckles and turning the screw in his head before setting back to work on the best way to trip up his students.

Ana returned, her long hair falling in waves around her face. Her makeup was dark and dramatic, though that wasn't what made Stein flinch. She looked like a completely different person than the innocent young girl who appeared on his front step in a blue sundress. Her clothing was dark, consisting of grey jeans and a tank top that had the face of a man unknown to him on it. Her black combat boots matched the black backpack she was using as a purse and he could have sworn he saw her quickly tuck a flask into a side pocket of it. He made a face as he noticed all her black jewelry. Were fathers supposed to let their daughters out of the house looking like this? He was assuming they weren't but he wasn't sure how to stop her.

"Like my ring?" She held out her hand and he saw that she was wearing a few rings. "The skull one, I figure that it's symbolic of my first day in death city!"

"It's nice." Stein rubbed his eyes underneath his glasses.

"I'll see you later! Bye, Daddy!" She disappeared out the door and Stein watched it close after her with a forlorn feeling.

Being a father was going to take a lot of work, she had only been in his life for a few hours and he was already lost on what to do.

* * *

**If you're going to send me flames for these little drabbles just don't, I'm not posting them to get feedback, they're just to get my writers block out of the way, and maybe someone somewhere will enjoy them. **


End file.
